Neya's Story

Well..not sure where to start. I'm sure this will be long--my apologies. I joined this forum because I had already become aware that my ex was a narcissist, and though we are divorced and he is remarried, and i'm "over him" as far as romantic feelings go, I'm still coming to terms with just how bad it was. And due to joint custody I still have to deal with him to some degree. And I'm really looking for people who've been there and get it...

So, now that I have an idea of what a narcissist is, in hindsight i can see that before my narcissist ex-husband, I was engaged to a narcissist in college. We were in the same group of friends, but we had very very little else in common...I went to a purposefully multiethnic church and regularly fought against racial inequality; he had been in an openly racist fraternity at a college in the deep south and was raised by an openly racist father. I was very laid back and didn't like spending money on myself, and he had to have name brand clothes and a fancy car. But, once i spent a little time with him, i found him to be charming, and of course he said that was his past, and he has grown beyond it, etc etc and wanted to be a better person. He even started working at an African-American church once we got together, i guess to try to prove he was a "changed man". At the time, I was working toward a degree to do missions work in Africa, and was saving myself for marriage. My ex-fiance and i got engaged, and he told me he too was interested in missions as I was, and even attended some training seminars with me. Our relationship moved very quickly...we were talking marriage within two weeks of dating. Even saying that, i cringe, because I feel like I'm an intelligent, strong woman and should know better. I grew up in a good home, with 2 parents who loved me and each other; i got good grades, i was a leader in everything i did...I didn't feel I "Needed" a man...Before my ex-fiance i had only had one other serious relationship...in high school. I was happy, self-confident, outgoing... Then a few months before our wedding, after he had pushed and pushed (as nicely as possible) the physical/sexual boundaries i'd set for myself, I finally thought, oh what the hell...we're getting married anyway, so what does it matter if i sleep with him now, or three months from now when we get married? So I slept with him and lost my virginity. ONE WEEK LATER...he came to my house, asked for the diamond ring back, and broke up with me, cold as stone. Said his goal had always been to "lay the missionary girl" and now that he had, he was done with me, especially since he said that when he slept with me, it disgusted him because he said my back looked like a man's. (still not sure to this day what that means because i look very much like a woman...but whatever). He left, and i was literally chasing him down the street on foot as he drove off in his sport's car...A week later, I got in a wreck on a busy freeway, and i called him because i was closest to his house (after calling the cops of course), and he said he was with some friends and was busy. Cold, cold, cold. I then found myself trying desperately to get him back; I now felt like i couldnt live without him, and he was SUPPOSED to be the only man i'd ever been with...so he took that from me and ran. And said that was his plan all along. So I basically whored myself out to him to try to make him stay; i booked a hotel room for us; i felt like a blow up doll. Totally degrading. He ordered room service and on the phone referred to me as his "fiancee"...but as soon as he hung up said "Dont take seriously what i said on the phone, i just didnt want them to think this was a one night stand"....and then he ate, and left. We met once more after that for me to give him the rest of this things, and I never saw him again. At this point, I just figured he was a jerk but didn't really know anything about narcissism or all the classic narc things he had done to me in our relationship and how easily i fell for the nonsense.

Fast forward two years, and I graduated college and was committed to not dating anyone else til i got to grad school so that i was sure to meet someone who had the same goals and aspirations as I did....And yet....I moved to my hometown to raise missionary support, and within a month, met my narcissist ex husband. We instantly became friends, and i figured he was "safe" since I worked with his mom at the church, and we had mutual friends. We liked the same music (so i thought), we had intersting conversations, and he was, again...very very charming. After a month of friendship and spending every day together, we kissed, and instantly we went from friends to very hot and heavy sexual partners...literally almost overnight. We started dating, and again...within a few weeks...were talking marriage. Again shaking my head in hindsight that i didnt see how very similar this was to my experience with my ex fiance...I really am smarter than this, but I guess I was too trusting and they were both VERY manipulative, and charming. We were married nine months after *meeting* and after eight months of dating.

This is when life got insane. I really started to see my life as one big ball of chaos and i didn't full comprehend why. I didnt know if i was contributing to it, or if it was all happening "to" me, but i felt ashamed to really share what was going on in my life with friends because it always felt like some big change, some big crisis, was happening. I feared my friends would get tired of it and not want anything to do with me. And it wasnt ALL directly dealing with my ex, but he made our lives so chaotic that even every day life things seemed huge. Four months into our marriage, I found out that (not by our choice) I was pregnant. I wasn't really ready for it, but I soon got over it and figured i was married, we'd used protection, and i still got pregnant, so this baby must be meant to be. The ENTIRE pregnancy my ex was cold and distant and unsupportive. He spoke of the pregnancy and ultrasounds as "creepy"...listening to the heartbeat was "creepy"...He wanted nothing to do with attending appointments, meeting the care provider or doula....it was all weird to him. I had a cesarean with our firstborn that i had not wanted, and he was not at all supportive...I would have to get up, with a fresh 3 day old scar, every 2 hours to nurse our son, because he couldnt be bothered to wake up. He never changed a single diaper, not even a wet one, until our son was ONE YEAR OLD. Even other people commented on it. In the beginning he didn't want me to nurse our son...at all...ever...because it was "creepy" and my breasts were for HIM. I DID nurse my son because when it came to my kids I wasn't going to sacrifice what was best for them to make him happy when there was no logic behind it....and that made him resent me and our kids. I figured he was immature, but saw it as nothing more than that. I had four brothers who were VERY involved husbands and fathers, and i just figured my standards were too unrealistic because of my experiences with my brothers who were very very very involved with their kids. I felt I was parenting alone, but if i ever made a decision he didnt like, he'd attempt to veto it without discussing it or researching it...He wanted me to do all the work, but then he'd come in and make decisions. If i didnt allow it, he'd then say I was trying to "wear the pants" and that he thought that I "wished I had a penis".

We fought a lot, and of course after every fight I'd be screaming at how insane the whole thing was, and he'd burst into tears, and then make me feel guilty for yelling at him, when usually i was yelling because he was sexually assaulting me by sleep-raping me (though i didnt see it as rape then) or giving me unsoliticited crotch grabs, or what not. He was so manipulative, that our fights usually ended up with ME yelling at HIM, and HIM crying, and ME feeling like *I* was the controlling one. He was that good. He would push my personal boundaries so much that for the first few years of our marriage, I had panic attacks all the time that left me catatonic. A few times he drove me so crazy i considered suicide. I begged for us to get counseling on numerous occasions but he'd never go. My biggest mistake was not going by myself. After he'd push and push until i was having a full blown panic attack, he'd tehn tell me i shouldn't tell anyone about the episodes because if i did, CPS would take my kids because i was mentally unstable. And i believed him. So i kept it hidden from everyone. My mom knew I had panic attacks but she didnt know how bad or that they were caused by him.

Then things really got crazy about 4 years into our marriage when i gave birth to our second child. Three months after she was born, she was diagnosed with a severe genetic disorder that leads to pervasive developmental delays, epilepsy, and autism. The epilepsy was severe. We had home health care nurses and weekly trips to the neurologist as well as specialists for all her other organs. My mother moved in with us to help me with the kids, because I couldnt take care of the house, and my son, and my special needs daughter all on my own, and of course my ex was absolutely no help. He spent more and more time with his friends and other girls, and when i complained, he said there was nothing wrong with it, because he was hanging out in a group.. He thought that infidelity couldnt happen if he was with TWO girls instead of ONE, and thus i had no reason to be upset that he was never home. :-| He jumped from job to college, to not quite finishing college, to finding another job, always taking advantage of my mom's wealth in the process (living with her while we saved money, etc) but then totally disrespected her in her own home. Backing up, but just to remember one of the biggest signs of narcissism early in our relationship: when my dad was still alive (he died four days before our first born was born), he bought a car for my ex, because my ex's car was old and wouldnt make the trip cross country to where we were going to live. My dad bought him a nice convertible, the car my ex had said in passing he loved. When my dad presented it to him, no strings attached, my ex said "It's blue? I hate that color..." No joke. *sigh* that was before the wedding. I should've run then. Of course he played it off like a joke and that my dad was super sensitive for being offended.

Fast forward to two years ago...we had just bought our first home, and he was working in his "Dream job". He started talking about this girl who was an intern there, and how cool she was and how much i'd like her and i should get to know her. I did meet her, and tried to talk to her but she never had anything to say to me. I figured she was just shy. I found out later, around all the MEN she worked with, she was very outgoing and a total flirt (she was the only female in the department). But i couldn't ever get her to say two words to me. At that time, we ewre in counseling, and she would sometimes watch our children for us in our home while we went to counseling. Shortly after, he started going hiking all the time. He said he didnt want me to go, because it was his time to clear his head and think....but she started going with him. WHen i stated my concern over this, he said i was being overly jealous and needy. He asked if she could spend the night on the weekends since hse lived across town and needed to be on this side of town for work early in the morning...She was ten years younger than me--barely an adult--not old enough to drink even...so I didnt see her as a "threat" and figured i was being nice and said ok. But every time i did, i would lay the kids down for bed, and wake up in the middle of the night--2 am...to see the two of them together. sometimes they'd order pizza .... this was a regular thing. Spending all night together under my roof with me in the house and the kids in the next room. I put my foot down and said no more. THis was when he started noticeably pulling away from me. So i contacted his boss since he worked for a church, and one's character and morality and family life matters in such a line of work. This made him HATE me..he later told me that even if i found out he had cheated, i shouldnt have told his boss because then people KNEW. he was mad that his image was tarnished. I told him if he would get rid of her and get in counseling, i'd stay with him, but he refused. We've been separated since January 2013 and divorced since October 2013. And i'm in another custody battle with him now that's been going on since this spring.

The ugliest piece in all of this is that i'm not just battling a narcissist that i share joint custody with (who never gave a shit about his kids until the divorce), but i'm battling a narcissist who has since married the girl he cheated on me with, who is barely an adult, and i found out has been clinically diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder--and she HATES me. So I am now a single mother, raising 2 children, one of whom is special needs, trying to find a career since i've been a stay at home mom all these years, battlings against two of the most deceitful, underhanded, manipulative, hateful people i've ever met, who are teamed up to try to destroy my existence. She has even shown up to doctors appointments with my daughter, telling them she is one of the parents. Not step parents. PARENT. So that's where I'm at right now. The hardest part is 1) Coming to terms with how abusive it was, and 2) Not being able to be as open about it as i'd like to be, because currently he doesnt know that i think he's a narcissist...if i did anything to publicly malign his name...he would hurt our children to get back at me. He is really that evil. And because it's virutally impossible in my state to get primary custody, I have to share custody with him. I have a special needs daughter, and he has called all her doctors and said he forbids any of them to SEE her without him present. He cant even DO that, but he's DONE it. I just wish they'd both fall off the face of the earth, but I can't imagine i'd ever be that lucky.